Preadolescence is a crucial time during which children's ability to recognize stress and its causes matures, and repertoires for coping with stress grow in both size and complexity. In addition, preadolescence is a time of increased brain changes and growth in key self-regulatory organs and systems. Preadolescents are, therefore, at a ripe stage to benefit from coping-based prevention and the plasticity of this developmental period suggests that such changes have the potential to be long-lasting. BaSICS is designed to prevent the onset of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress symptoms in preadolescent children facing chronic stress. Two mechanisms of action are targeted in this project. First, the project seeks to demonstrate that children facing chronic stress stemming from poverty, discrimination, and violence exposure can acquire and utilize new ways of coping that are adaptive in a wide variety of circumstances. Second, the project will examine the extent to which improved coping resulting from the intervention engages the physiologic intermediate mechanism of the HPA. Finally, the project aims to link changes in coping and the HPA to changes in internalizing symptoms that would signal prevention of the emergence of new or worsening of existing symptoms. Discovery of ways to prevent and/or halt this progression of damage to a child's stress response system that leads to psychopathology can offer new directions for combatting health disparities.